The mainstream media has finally caught up and fleshed out some important
issues regarding Iraq that I wrote about on Sunday (see The Iraq Catch
22). There are three in particular you should read:

First take a look at the Washington Post story by Robin Wright and Peter
Baker, White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops. Let
there be no doubt from this point forward, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have found
their balls and are pushing back against crazy proposals advanced by the
neo-cons. New SecDef Robert Gates will have ample opportunity in the
coming days to demonstrate whether he is on the side of the President or the
troops.

Second, it is now official because the New York Times tells us today (as I said on Sunday) that Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says. The
article by DAVID S. CLOUD and MICHAEL R. GORDON lays out the bad news that
notwithstanding the surge of US troops into Baghdad in August and September the
violence among the civilian population spiraled upwards.

Finally, as I warned on Sunday, we're going to try to take down Mookie. Who? "Mookie" aka Moqtada al Sadr is the villain in the latest Pentagon
report. According to Julian Barnes at the Los Angeles Times, Sadr Army is called top threat in Iraq, A Pentagon report cites
the danger of the Shiite cleric's militia. What Barnes neglects to
mention in much detail is that Mookie is not killing U.S. troops. However,
if we move ahead with the neo-con plan to take out Mookie his followers will
turn on our troops and that will be a bloodbath that will worsen things in
Iraq. Take that to the bank.